Adv 32 - zeka´s report

[zeka]

The corporations available since the beginning of the game was a great idea! And I’m not so experienced with them since I often finish my games before the modern dates. The first RBepic I tried to play was Epic 16 – Something Fishy, but I retired very early due to high maintenance (I didn’t know very well the behavior of corporations and spread sushi to the 2nd city when possible) and was unable to make a write-up. So this game sounded perfect to me.

STRATEGY:

Analyzing the game scoring, my goals are:
1) Found as many corporations as possible before 1AD
2) Get as many branches as possible before 1 AD
3) Try to win with domination via culture after founding all corporations, including Aluminum Co.
4) The city sizes will come as consequence of the food corporations


For this, I’ll need:

1) 2 Great Merchants for Sid’s Sushi and Cereal Mills. They will come through Temple of Artemis and Merchants after caste system is available. Ps: TGL is already obsolete
2) 2 Great Engineers for Creative Constructors and Mining Inc. These will come through Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and engineers after researching Metal Casting.
3) 1 Great Scientist for Standard Ethanol who I can get with an early library.
4) 1 Great Artist for Civilized Jewelers from Music. This one will be the most important.
5) I’ll need Another Great Scientist for Aluminum Co. later.

For all these things, combined with the fact that we are in a Pangaea, the expansion needs to be really fast, and the imperialistic trait will help us as it never did. Looking at our land, the initial plan will be research agriculture to farm that corn (after the capital completes worker) and then research bronze working to chop those forests for settler bonus production, just after the capital finishes worker.
With 3 good production cities in hand, we can start building the needed wonders, including Oracle to get Code of Laws (ignoring Superconductors) for unlimited merchants, scientists and artists, and for courthouses.
The culture needed for the domination will come through Sid’s Sushi, Creative Constructors and Civilized Jewelers branches on the border cities as well as Great Artists and cultured buildings. The other companies must be founded in interior cities, such as the capital. I’ll try to get the most resources for these corporations as I can.





THE GAME

After revealing some resources with the warrior and the machine gun I settled Rome on the incense getting 3 food resources (wheat, clam and deer), 2 happy resources (incense and gems!), plenty of forests and some gold, spices and clams!



Wow, never saw better land. Rome started worker (and then 2 settlers) and research is set to agriculture to farm the wheat and then BW to chop forests. The capital would work (only) this 5f resource while building settlers with the help from forests. One machine gun explored to the west, the other to the southwest and the warrior to the east, founding a tribal village and getting Agriculture! It could be Bronze Working, but it didn’t hurt too. BW is being researched now. The SW machine gun found another tribal village next turn getting The Wheel! BW and Masonry were better techs, but this one was better than agriculture. Elizabeth, Pericles and Gandhi were the (cultured) neighbors (I guess the sponsor chose them…). :rolleyes:
After getting BW and farming the wheat, the worker started chopping around and the 2 settlers were built in aprox. 10 turns each one and Antium and Cumae were founded getting nice resources and blocking Pericles and Gandhi.



Since Stonehenge was out of the plans to avoid great prophets, I had to build monuments and libraries. Gandhi founded Buddhism in Delhi and Judaism in Bombay making some culture pressure on Cumae, getting the stones.
After some expansion, with the cities of Neapolis, Ravenna, Arretium and Mediolanum, the Roman Empire was like this:



The high maintenance cost was supported by gold and gems resources and I still had I nice research. Note the 3 main cities building its wonders: Pyramids in Rome with the help of Sitting Bull’s (Hinduism founder) stones, Temple of Artemis in Cumae and The Oracle, near completion, in Antium. Next, a weed move: as planned, I would get code of laws from Oracle and found Confucianism, but instead, I took metal casting in force of habit.



Well, at least I could build forges and hire engineers in the capital, which finished Pyramids in 775BC. Antium was working now on the Great scientist project, with the library already completed and hiring 2 scientists, giving a total of 8 gpp (75%GS), when in 775BC Peter got a Great Scientist and founded Standard Ethanol in St.Petersburg!



Temple of Artemis was completed 2 turns later in Cumae. Hanging Gardens came next, in 400BC in Rome, accelerating GE production. In the same year, the following message surprised me: “Peter has proven the world is round”. Brilliant!



Peter got oil from Std.Ethanol and built a transport, which could pass across ocean. The first roman Great Person born in 350BC, a Great Merchant, after trading techs for CoL and hiring merchants in Cumae to increase the chances of GM, decreasing GProphet chances. Sid’s Sushi Co was founded in Cumae to combat Bombay culture, which was a double Holy city.



Note I was building forums instead of courthouses in order to get Great People faster. Note also the Judaism predomination in the world, due to many missionaries built by Gandhi (probably).
Next, the research beelined to music and I started o build sushi’s executives. On the turn before completing music Pericles afraid me: he got a Great A… Scientist! A silver resource was discoreved on the same turn, wow it’s excellent for Creative Constructors later! The Civilized Jewelers Inc was founded in Antium bombing culture at Greek borders. “Rome celebrates the prime minister day!” : we appreciate it, the high maintenance goes to zero!



I was reaching the dead line 1AD, so I timed the number of hired merchants in Cumae to get the 2nd GM and found Cereal Mills in Rome. On the same turn, Elizabeth got a GM too!



After founding those 3 corporations and expanding them to 7 cities I got 370 scoring points plus a broken economy with 259 maintenance and -92/turn at 0% research.



In the first couple of turns I had to put almost all cities on wealth to avoid a brake, but the research was still good with the help TGL. Other Great Wonders were built then as I had marble, stone and industrial feature.A damned Great Prophet was born with low odds instead of a Great Artist in Antium, so I used him for a 12 turned Golden Age. Pericles is now completing Liberalism and will get Superconductors.
The Great People missing for the others corporations were 2 GE and a GS much later (rocketry). Rome has >50% odds of generating a GE… At the first time, success: Creative Constructions is founded in Cumae!



At the second time: success! Another GE to found Mining inc. … But it was too late! :thumbsdow Sitting Bull got a GE on the very previous turn! Ouch! Well, I had some luck too with the GM… I used him for another Golden Age.



After this, the game didn’t have much action: I was generating a bunch of Great Artists, some cities were flipping (Bombay, Nottingham, Philadelphia, Athens, Corinth and Knossos) and the research was directed to rocketry for the last corporation.





I realized that I was reaching a culture victory fast, frustrating any attempt to win by domination. So, all I had to do was expand the corporations to mine and foreign cities, flip near cities a, improve population and found Aluminum Co. to get the points. Antium had The Great Library, so it was the most suitable city for generating a GS. With the help of lots of hired scientists, Rutherford founded the last corporation in 1290AD.



In the game ending, I still had time to make a smart move: the 3rd Legendary City would be reached in 1 turn. So, in order to get more time to a possible flip, I changed the 5 civics, getting 3 turns of anarchy. The plan succeeded: Knossos was flipped the turn after! :neenernee
I won the game by culture in 1390AD with:

“At 1AD”: - 3 corporations founded
- 7 branches

“At 1500AD”: - 250 from corporations headquarters
- 107 branches for 214 points
- 13 cities size >= 5
- 6 cities flipped

“At the end of the game”: - 199 turns for -199
- 107 branches
- 13 cities size >= 10

TOTAL: 987 points
Finish date: 1390AD





Take a look at Cumae at the end of the game, +1000 income!




Thanks for the sponsor for this excellent game! This was the most funny of the games I played from RB. Actually, I played it once again trying to beat my 1AD scoring. In this new game I could found Std. Ethanol too before 1AD.